Forget Me Not Read online

  The relief hits me the minute I leave the room and close the door behind me, the minute I put some distance between me and the small, miserable baby on the sofa.

  Chapter 5

  I have asked Isaac to have dinner with me. I contacted him out of the blue, having obtained his mobile number from Ben’s secretary, and he was gracious enough to accept my invitation without sounding surprised and without asking questions. There are some advantages, I suppose, to being a bereaved parent. Perhaps those who have not lost so much feel they owe you a debt. At least, that’s what I’m hoping.

  We’ve arranged to meet at the small Italian place at the top of the hill, near the Underground in Hampstead. The night is a murky dark and headlights bounce off the wet tarmac. As I’m crossing the road, I catch a glimpse of Isaac’s close-shaven head in the glow of the streetlight, but his craggy face is mostly in shadow. He waits for me under a large umbrella and his mackintosh is slick with rain. We greet each other with an awkward hello. He opens the door to let me through first.

  The restaurant is warm and smells of garlic and wine. Red-checked cloths cover the tables. We’re seated in the corner, and I’m relieved the place is not too full or too noisy.

  Isaac is on the inside. Ben relies on him, and he spends time with Lexi. I need his help. And so I try to muster whatever remnants of charm I once possessed in order to make him my ally. I force myself to make small talk.

  ‘How do you find it,’ Isaac asks me, ‘working twelve-hour shifts, changing your sleep patterns from night to day?’

  ‘I barely notice it any more. You get used to it. And now it means I have a couple of days a week free. What I’d really like is to be able to help Ben, with Lexi …’ I look up but Isaac doesn’t comment, doesn’t react one way or another. ‘But Ben doesn’t seem too keen on the idea,’ I say.

  Isaac lifts his glass and I do the same. Since Vivien died, I feel I’m playing some sort of imitation game: I’m an empty shell, impersonating the mannerisms of the live people around me. So we sip Peroni from frosted glasses. The beer is cold and delicious.

  ‘Sometimes it can be isolating,’ I say, ‘to be awake while everyone else is asleep. It’s as though I exist in a different world. And it’s not very good for a social life. Most of us end up becoming friends with colleagues on the ward, so it gets quite insular. But I’m lucky, I work with amazing people.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ he says. ‘I used to work as a night editor on a news service. I would get to the office at six in the evening and work until four the next morning.’

  He’s taken me by surprise. ‘So how did you end up working as a driver for Ben?’

  ‘Actually, it wasn’t Ben who hired me. It was Vivien. I used to deliver her groceries,’ he says with a smile.

  ‘You’ve lost me completely,’ I say.

  ‘She didn’t tell you?’ Isaac is looking at me in that serious, considered way of his.

  ‘No, she didn’t tell me,’ I say. ‘But then there were lots of things we didn’t discuss. You’ve probably worked out that we weren’t particularly close.’

  I drink my beer. My thoughts swirl and loosen in a not unpleasant way, and the anxiety, the sense of danger that is my permanent companion, settles a fraction.

  ‘So how did you go from journalism to delivering my daughter’s groceries?’ I say.

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘I’d like to hear it.’

  It’s true, I do want to hear his story. I would like nothing better than to think of something other than myself and my granddaughter, even for a few minutes. Maybe this is selfish, to wish for relief from my pain.

  The waiter is passing, and I signal to him. When he comes over I order us another two beers.

  ‘I advanced in the old world of journalism when there was no online content,’ Isaac says. ‘There was the wonderful newspaper model which provided jobs and profit. At heart I’m a storyteller, and that was an environment where all I had to do was write a great story. Later, I was a good editor. I didn’t have to worry about being a commercial operator, the money took care of itself. People paid to advertise in newspapers, and the newspaper owner paid us to work there. Then the internet changed everything. Suddenly content was everywhere, put together by journalists, by non-journalists, by amateurs, by anyone who had something to say. The commercial model that had kept journalists employed fell apart.’

  ‘You mean you lost your job?’

  ‘Not exactly. I worked in newsrooms around the world for thirty-odd years, I moved around a lot as a foreign correspondent. But in the last fifteen years, I ended up settling down in London – partner, children, mortgage – and almost by mistake, I started climbing the corporate ladder. I ended up in a management job I hated and by the time I was fifty I was miserable as all hell. Then I was offered a way out – I was head-hunted for a start-up, an internet content provider. And I thought all I had to do was be a great storyteller again to get a chunk of that new money. But I was wrong. Because there is no clear commercial model for the internet, and everyone is trying something new every day.’

  He pauses, rubbing the back of his neck with his left hand. I notice he lifts his glass with his left hand, too.

  ‘You have to be everything,’ he says. ‘You have to be a technologist, a content person, a marketer, and you have to be financially savvy just to stay afloat. And most journalists are not all of those things. There’s this image I have in my mind …’

  He becomes animated and begins to speak with his hands, drawing pictures in the air in front of him. ‘Picture a big, beautiful, placid dam,’ he says.

  ‘Okay.’ I do.

  ‘The water is still. There’s barely a ripple, almost nothing moves – that’s old journalism. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge hole is punched in the side of the dam. The water is gushing out; it’s spreading everywhere, going in different directions. That’s the image I get when I imagine the effect the internet had on the old media. Everything was disrupted. It went from a peaceful, settled situation where there was certainty, to chaos. I don’t know what comes next. No one knows where the water will eventually come to rest.’

  ‘So your internet start-up failed?’

  ‘Spectacularly.’ He grins, but there’s regret too. ‘We needed better technology, we needed to be commercial people and marketers and we were none of those things. I won’t bore you with the details, but to cut a long story short, it was a disaster. I took my pension as a lump sum and invested it in the start-up, which sadly – or predictably, depending how you look at it – folded soon after I joined. So I found myself with no skills of any use in the world outside of a newsroom.’

  ‘Couldn’t you go back to your old job?’

  ‘My old world has disappeared. A fifty-something man who doesn’t have the skills for the internet world is not exactly employable. There are younger, hungrier people who have a multitude of skills, and they tend to come cheaper. I’d held all these positions, I was used to being important – and I was stunned to find myself over the hill and unemployable. My wife, understandably, thought I’d been an idiot to walk out on a job that provided absolute security.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘We were middle-aged and in a position where with only Helena’s income, we couldn’t quite make the mortgage payments. I wasn’t exactly fun to be around and she couldn’t stand me moping around the house all day. I really needed a job and Waitrose offered me one. Driving for them got me out of the house. It paid. Blackthorn Road was on my route. And your daughter was a real charmer.’

  He lifts his beer, and we toast to Vivien’s memory. They must have been fond of each other and that is somehow a comfort.

  ‘So how exactly did Vivien come to hire you?’

  He smiles at me and I find him charming when he smiles.

  ‘She’d always book the delivery slot between nine and ten at night, and she’d most often be home alone. I’d end up carrying her groceries right the way down to the basement
for her, unpacking them too and helping her put them away. Even though I was always late for my next drop-off. After a couple of visits I knew where everything was.’

  Isaac laughs, as do I, at the thought of Vivien’s sense of entitlement.

  ‘She always was a night owl,’ I say. ‘She loved to stay up until the early hours. After Lexi was born, she used to say she felt her day only began when her daughter went to sleep.’

  ‘I think Vivien wanted a bit more freedom,’ Isaac says. ‘She was looking for someone she could trust to drive Alexandra to and from school, and take her to her tutors or wherever it was she needed to be. She’d been offered an interior design project but she couldn’t commit to it because Ben could never guarantee he’d be around to help with Alexandra. She didn’t want to hire a nanny. So a few months after we met, she offered me a position as their driver.’

  He pauses and looks at me. ‘Vivien was very kind to me,’ he says. ‘She threw me a lifeline.’

  ‘I think she knew how to spot a good man.’ I help myself to a piece of bread, dizzy, from beer and from nerves.

  The waiter delivers our plates, piled high with pasta in seafood sauce and we turn our attention to negotiating our spaghetti. I’m hungry and I don’t have my daughter’s self-control, but I’m eating more slowly than usual, like a teenager on a first date. I’m relieved my blouse is patterned with red flowers, so the flecks of tomato sauce won’t show. Isaac too has chosen a sensible black shirt.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask about Vivien’s father?’ he says.

  I put down my fork. After the beer, my words flow more freely than they should. It’s my turn to confess my mistakes.

  ‘Her father was a registrar on the neonatal ward where I was training. He was married when I fell pregnant, and he was Malaysian, from a very conservative family. He didn’t want anything more to do with me and Vivien never had any contact with him. That’s really all I want to say.’

  Isaac nods, paying me close attention. At heart I’m a storyteller, he said. And there is a story in the premature death of a wealthy St John’s Wood socialite. I wonder, for a moment, if it’s me he’s interested in or my daughter’s story. Perhaps I am being mined for information. I promised myself, the day Vivien died, not to answer any questions.

  Then I dismiss these thoughts as part of the paranoia that goes hand-in-hand with my grief. Ben trusts Isaac. Vivien trusted him. I make up my mind to trust him too.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, picking up on my discomfort. ‘I didn’t mean to pry. I feel like I was talking about myself too much. I’m interested in you.’

  I give him a taut smile. ‘I was attractive too, once,’ I say. ‘And young and very stupid.’

  ‘You’re still attractive.’

  He pauses. We both concentrate on our pasta.

  ‘Was there anyone else,’ he says, ‘after Vivien’s father?’

  ‘No one important. Just me and my daughter.’ I don’t like the sour edge that taints my voice.

  I glance over at Isaac’s hand. He’s not wearing a wedding ring though he mentioned his wife.

  ‘How about you?’ I say.

  ‘Separated. Helena has gone down to Devon to stay with my stepdaughter. She’s just had a baby.’

  ‘How did you two meet?’

  ‘Like you, most of my social life happens through work. I was bureau chief for Reuters in Johannesburg and she was a foreign correspondent.’

  ‘You mentioned your stepdaughters the other night at the house?’ I say.

  He nods. ‘Yes, the twins. Abigail and Chloe. When Helena and I got together, they were eighteen months old.’

  I look down at my empty plate and I feel ashamed. I still have an appetite – for food, for men – while my daughter lies cold in the mortuary. I feel a distinct pulse of pain on the right side of my head and I reach up and press hard on my temple. I push my plate to one side. As I do, I’m sure Isaac catches sight of the bruises to the back of my hand, but he’s tactful enough not to ask about them.

  I massage the site of the pain and I drink some water. When I look at Isaac, I notice the tiniest fleck of tomato sauce just to the right of his mouth. I reach out and wipe it away with the tip of my serviette. My thumb brushes his lips. Isaac looks surprised, he wasn’t expecting me to be so bold.

  We’ve finished the pasta, the bread and the beer, and Isaac motions to the waiter, who has been ignoring us in favour of a table of eight on the opposite side of the restaurant. When he comes over, somewhat begrudgingly, we ask him to clear the plates and order two coffees. I ask for more water.

  The dinner is almost at its end. It’s time. I cannot leave before asking for his help.

  ‘Isaac,’ I say, ‘I invited you to have dinner with me tonight because I have something to ask of you. A favour. I thought, given the fact that you’re a father, you’d understand.’

  He nods. I try to tell if he is disappointed I have an ulterior motive, but I can’t read his expression. I am reluctant to have to plead for a stranger’s help.

  ‘I know Ben relies on you to help him with Lexi,’ I say. ‘He also mentioned you’re overseeing security at the house. So he obviously trusts you. I, on the other hand, have a more distant relationship with my son-in-law. Things were complicated between Vivien and me, I don’t know if she ever said anything?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Ben resents the fact that I wasn’t around more and I didn’t give Vivien more support. I wasn’t your traditional granny; I’ve always been very committed to my career. So understandably, I suppose, Ben is rather cautious about letting me spend time with my granddaughter. And I think maybe he’s also directing some of his anger about Vivien’s death my way. So, my point is, I was wondering if you might put in a good word for me.’

  ‘What exactly is it you’d like me to say?’

  ‘I want to spend time with Lexi. I thought I could pick her up from school a couple of afternoons a week, maybe walk her back to my flat, give her an early dinner and then bring her home. It would give us a chance to bond and it would give Ben a break.’

  ‘Ben’s been picking her up himself most days,’ Isaac says.

  ‘I know, I’m sure he has it all sorted for now. But Ben has always been ambitious, and there will come a point where he needs to focus his attention on his business again. You said yourself he wasn’t home before ten o’clock most nights, that’s when you and Vivien started talking. Vivien once mentioned it wasn’t unusual for him to leave the house before six in the morning. I imagine in the long run his investment firm isn’t going to thrive if he’s only half present.’

  The waiter places our coffees down and hands the bill to Isaac. I put my card down next to his. So far Isaac hasn’t commented on what I’ve said. I wait, impatient, as we split the bill and each of us enters our codes into the pin machine. Finally, the waiter leaves us alone again.

  ‘Ben is going to have to find a new equilibrium without Vivien there to care for his daughter,’ I say. ‘And I think it’s better for Lexi to be looked after by her grandmother, rather than a nanny. I’ve given up my job as manager of the ward. I don’t know how else I can prove to Ben that I’m serious. What I’m asking of you is to talk to him. Put in a good word. Ask him to give me a chance.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he says.

  ‘Thank you.’

  I’m not entirely sure what Isaac thinks of me. He seems a little distant now I’ve asked him for a favour; now the conversation has turned to Ben and Lexi. But I could be misreading him. The distance I perceive may exist only in my own guilt-ridden imagination.

  Our coffee cups are empty. The party of eight has departed and we are the only people left in the restaurant. The waiter lounges, bored and yawning, against the till. My throat is dry again and my head throbs, as if to remind me who I am. My daughter didn’t get to live to her fortieth birthday, and tonight, sitting at this table with Isaac, I’ve felt happy to be alive. I’m a monster. It’s time to leave but I don’t want to go ho
me alone.

  My living room faces onto the main road and so the windows are always shut. Even so, the drone of traffic is ever present and the air is stale. The fumes find a way to creep inside. An electric heater sits in the cavity where there was once a fireplace, and the two bars glow a fierce orange. I forgot to switch it off before I left for dinner.

  On the mantelpiece, above the heater, there is a photograph of Ben and Vivien on their wedding day. Their kiss is captured in black and white. Vivien is sylph-like in satin, her dark hair pulled back, her face turned up to her husband’s. A bouquet of white roses tied with a satin ribbon dangles from her right hand.

  Next to their wedding photograph is Lexi’s latest school portrait. She is unsmiling, a pale-skinned, ginger-haired child wearing a green blazer. There are several more photographs of my granddaughter scattered around the room, and in these a chubby baby becomes a sturdy toddler and then a pensive schoolgirl.

  I walk down the passage, trailing my hand along the Artexed walls that threaten to close in on me as I anticipate the long loneliness of the night ahead.

  I open the door to Vivien’s room. Here, the frosted window faces onto a narrow driveway, behind which is a row of red-brick garages. The light never reaches this room, no matter what the season or time of day. Vivien would complain about the smell, and the damp so persistent that when she put her hand flat against a certain spot on her bedroom wall her palm came away wet.

  Her white-painted bedstead still takes pride of place in the centre of the room. The bed linen with lace edging is the same as it was when she slept here last. On the bedside table, her beloved pink-furred Alice band is draped over the small lamp.

  I see myself, on a cold, dark school morning, shaking her awake and turning on the light. I set a cup of tea down on the bedside table, next to the Alice band. I think about all those mornings when I hurried her into her school uniform, and shunted her off to a childminder, hours before school even opened, so I could be at the hospital in time for handover. I don’t want to think about all the afternoons I wasn’t there to fetch her from school, how I would pick her up, exhausted, from the childminder’s at night.